July 16, 2017

The
public broadcaster – which runs Doordarshan and AIR – has apparently
been asked to give up its PTI and UNI subscriptions and rely instead on
Hindustan Samachar.

The
Press Trust of India building on Parliament Street, New Delhi, where
Prasar Bharati used to be headquartered until recently before it moved
away because of the high costs. Credit: Neeraj Bhushan

New Delhi: In what may amount to one of its most
direct attempts to influence the media, the Narendra Modi government is
believed to be examining a plan to end Prasar Bharati’s use of news
agencies like the Press Trust of India and United News of India and get
the public broadcaster – which runs Doordarshan and All India Radio
– to rely instead on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-backed Hindusthan
Samachar for its basic news.
Word of the replacement plan was put out in the public domain by the
former I&B minister and current Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari
on July 12. He claimed that his “sources in the ministry” told him that
the government has instructed Prasar Bharati, India’s largest public
broadcasting agency, to terminate the services of conventional news
agencies, which, together, are paid Rs 15.75 crore annually.
Tewari also claimed that “pressure” was being exerted on both the
news agencies to provide “slanted” feeds, which, in other words, means
news which depicts the government only in a positive light.
Last year, as The Wire reported,
the Modi government sought to get the PTI board to chose one of its
handpicked nominees as the editor-in-chief of the news agency when the
then incumbent, M.K. Razdan stepped down. However, the board rejected
these nominees and later went ahead and appointed veteran journalist Vijay Joshi as
PTI’s editorial head. Since then, the agency has continued to report
national developments with the same measure of independence as before.
Manish Tewari alleged that the government wanted to control the
political narrative by influencing bodies like Prasar Bharati, which are
meant to be autonomous. The public broadcaster is known to have a
pro-government slant, despite the fact that successive governments have
denied the allegation.
However, if PTI and UNI are indeed shown the way out, this would be
the first time a government uses its influence directly to get positive
media coverage.
Speaking to The Wire, Tewari said, “After having brought the
larger part of the media into submission, the only thing left was to
control the news feeds. The instructions do not come in writing from the
government. The top officers of Prasar Bharati have already been told
to replace PTI and UNI with Hindusthan Samachar.”
What impact such control has over primary information, in which news
agencies like PTI and UNI specialise, remains to be seen. Several Prasar
Bharati officials with whom The Wire spoke refused to comment
on the issue, but made it clear that although DD and AIR continue to use
PTI and UNI news feeds until now, there have been rumours about the
replacement plan for the past one month.
Tewari’s tweets indicate that if the government goes ahead with its
plan, it may put forward the increasing financial burden on Prasar
Bharati (because of the high subscription rates charged by PTI and UNI)
as the reason to rope in Hindusthan Samachar. But given the way the
government has targeted critical media houses and journalists in recent
times, many civil society members may see this as another attempt by the
RSS-backed dispensation to advance its majoritarian Hindutva agenda.
A former I&B secretary with intimate knowledge of the goings on at Prasar Bharati told The Wire,
“The replacement plan has been on the cards for some time now. Prasar
Bharati was located in the PTI building in New Delhi. Not only was PTI
charging exorbitant rent for its space, it also had very high
subscription rates. Prasar Bharati was forced to vacate the building
consequently. The government may now see this as an opportunity to
remove PTI and UNI and bring in one of their agencies.”
However, he added that Prasar Bharati, before subscribing to
Hindusthan Samachar, little-known news agency that it is, should ensure
that it has adequate staff and infrastructure to meet the high demands
of the broadcasting agency.
“In the past, Prasar Bharati has told a dying UNI that it could not
charge high subscription rates from Prasar Bharati and must chart out
its revival plan. The same thinking should also apply when dealing with
Hindustan Samachar,” he said, cautioning Prasar Bharati against
the injudicious use of public money in this case.
The fortunes of Hindusthan Samachar, a multi-lingual news agency founded in 1948 by Shivram Shankar Apte, a senior RSS pracharak
and co-founder of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad along with RSS ideologue
M.S. Golwalkar, have swung in a profitable direction with the
institutional help of the Modi government.
In June last year, the government, in its new policy on print news
advertisements, included Hindusthan Samachar as one of the three
agencies (the others were PTI and UNI) to which newspapers can subscribe
to qualify for government advertisements – a key boost to the
RSS-backed agency. Last year, the government spent more than Rs 400
crore on print media advertisements.
A Hindustan Times report
said that the agency, in its declared mission to present news from a
“nationalist” perspective, is set to raise its subscription charges
soon. It added that in its plan to expand its reach, the agency will
move to a “swanky” office in Noida from its current address in
Paharganj, right next to the RSS’s office in New Delhi.
The agency has benefitted from the BJP-led governments at the Centre
in the past too. After having faced fierce attacks during the Emergency
in the 1970s, the agency was forced to shut shop in 1986. But the RSS
revived it in 2000 during Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s tenure as prime
minister.
If it lands government contracts now, like Prasar Bharati’s subscription, its finances will likely to receive a great boost.
Attempts to reach Surya Prakash, chairperson of Prasar Bharati were
unsuccessful. The story will be updated with his comments when they are
received.

Map of L K Advani's Rath Yatra of 1990

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